Chapter 61 - The Keeper of the Frozen Shore
The sound of my own pulse hammered against my ears, louder than the gale roaring off the open expanse of Lake Superior.
*Your father.*
The words seemed to curdle the air in my throat. My father had died thirty years ago when an engine fire claimed a twin-engine commuter plane over Isle Royale. There had been no recovery of remains, only a scorched swath of spruce trees, an open casket filled with river stone, and an insurance settlement that Donald Vance had personally structured into my college trust. I had grown up believing myself an orphan of bad weather and failing hydraulics.
"Amanda, don't look at him," Marilyn's voice cracked like a whip in the sub-zero wind. She had Julian by the scruff of his collar, hauling him across the frost-heaved sandstone towards the fissure at the base of the cliffs. Her hand had slipped into her coat, wrapping around the small snub-nosed revolver she had carried out of the burning safehouse in Duluth. "Look at the water. The cutter's tender is already in the breakers."
I forced my gaze down from the blinding halo of the lighthouse gallery. The rigid-inflatable boat was skipping across the churning foam, its twin outboards screaming as six figures in black tactical foul-weather suits balanced against the swells, their carbines slung across their chests. They were eighty yards out and closing fast.
"Move!" Thomas shouted, his face streaked with crimson where the broken pilothouse glass had sliced his temple. He shoved Chloe ahead of him into the mouth of a dark sea cave that yawned between two massive pillars of red rock. "The tide's coming up, but there’s a service staircase carved inside the stone. Donald showed it to me forty years ago. Get inside!"
I pulled Ruby deeper into the shearling folds of my jacket, keeping her face pressed against my neck to shield her from the flying spray. My boots slipped on the glaze of black ice covering the sandstone shelf, but I drove my heels into the crags, stumbling after Marilyn.
From the balcony above, the loud-hailer clicked again, the man's baritone cutting clean through the scream of the gale. "Julian, stay where you are and you might live to see morning. Amanda, Donald didn't protect you from me. He took you to protect himself. Bring the ninth key up the hoist, or my men will sink the *Eleanor* with all of you inside her."
Julian didn't answer. He slumped against the slick stone wall of the cave mouth, clutching his shattered shoulder, his face the color of wet lime. "He's alive," he whimpered, his teeth clicking together uncontrollably. "Donald swore he burned in the cockpit. Donald lied to all of us."
"Donald gave you thirty years of luxury, you miserable coward," Marilyn hissed, yanking Julian by his good arm into the dripping darkness of the cavern. "Keep moving or I'll leave you for the surf."
The interior of the sea cave was deafening. The swell surged into the cavern every few seconds, lifting water to our knees before receding with a guttural, sucking roar that dragged at our legs. But carved directly into the rear sandstone wall was an iron rung ladder, slick with salt and algae, vanishing upward into a vertical ventilation shaft cut deep into the cliff.
"Thomas," I yelled over the thunder of the surge, "the men from the boat!"
A flash lit the cave entrance, followed by the deafening crack of a 5.56 round shattering against the archway. Chunks of red sandstone rained down into the froth.
"Up the ladder!" Thomas ordered, bringing up the flare gun he had carried from the tug. "Marilyn, take the girl! Amanda, go first!"
May you like
I didn't argue. With Ruby locked securely to my chest in the canvas sling, I grabbed the first iron rung. The metal was so cold it tore at the leather of my gloves, but the heat of my daughter’s body against my ribs was an anchor. I began to climb, leaving the frozen fury of the lake behind as we ascended into the hollow spine of Devil’s Island.
***
